


I Will Love You Without Any Strings Attached

by rosesmallow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Autistic Poe Dameron, Canon Compliant, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28997079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesmallow/pseuds/rosesmallow
Summary: Kare catches Poe in the middle of a lie and confronts him about it, and the answer she gets surprises her.(Or, the one where That line about the jacket from the Poe comics is explained).
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Karé Kun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	I Will Love You Without Any Strings Attached

Poe's foot tapped in time to the music blasting from his comms as he reached for the next set of tools to finish up the repairs on his new X-Wing. 

It was no  _ Black One _ , but after being so long without one, Leia could have handed him a rustbucket and he would've kissed every bit of the hull he could reach. That said, the ship was in pretty fine condition when they got it, all it took was a few afternoons of working with Rose and her techs to get his preferred modifications in place and add his signature orange coat of paint.

After his last mission escorting some new recruits, Vi Moradi found on Black Spire, his new ship had taken some minor damage: mostly some blown fuses and carbon scoring. He was still wired from his flight, and no one needed his help around the base so he waved off Rose's techs to deal with the repairs himself. There were ships with worse damage for them to work on, anyway.

“ _ Here we stand or here we fall _ -” Poe stopped singing abruptly with a frown when the music suddenly quit. “Beebee, did you turn the - whoa!”

A pair of hands grabbed him by the legs and dragged him out from under the ship, the mechanic's creeper he was lying on rolling easily beneath him.

Karé's face quickly came into view, and Poe relaxed. Not under attack from an unknown assailant, and judging from her cool expression, there wasn't an emergency to attend to. However, the second Karé spoke, he was back on edge: “Why did you lie to them?” 

Poe frowned as he sat up. His shoulders ached and as he stood, his knees cracked. “Lie to who?"

“Finn and Rey.” Karé folded her arms as she leaned up against the hull of the X-Wing. “Finn mentioned over lunch that you said you hated that old flight jacket of yours.”

_ Ah, that. _

Poe became very interested in cleaning his hands with his grease rag as he tried to formulate a response. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why in nine hells would you do that?” Karé asked, “You  _ love _ that jacket, you always wore it. It was -”

“A comfort object, yeah it was.” Poe brushed back a loose curl from his forehead. “It's complicated, Karé.”

“Telling them the jacket meant a lot to you is complicated now?”

Poe exhaled sharply, through his nose. “Yeah, it was, Karé. Maybe I made it up to be a bigger deal than it was in my head but…” he tossed the rag aside and leaned back on one of the crates. “They wanted a distraction from everything after Crait, so they asked me about Jakku.”

He closed his eyes. Rey thought it would be a good way to take their minds off things, and maybe it worked for  _ them _ , but for Poe, that retelling meant he had to work through trauma that was barely a week old. 

“And let me guess, you did what you do best and snarked your way through it, like nothing that happened bothers you.” Poe opened his eyes and gawked at Karé: it was a statement, not a question.

“What else was I gonna do?” 

“Be honest?” Karé suggested as she crossed over to him, sitting beside him. 

Poe looked up at the ceiling. “I didn't know what they'd say. I figured if I admitted how much the damn thing meant to me, Finn would try to give it back...but…I hadn't dealt with people who weren't - everything that happened on  _ The Raddus _ just -”

“So you didn't know if you could stop masking around Finn and Rey.” Karé realized, turning to face Poe. “Didn't know if they would accept you.”

Poe nodded and exhaled shakily. “Yeah. With everything that was going on, I shouldn't have even been thinking about that.”

“Poe…” Karé's voice was gentle as she reached to squeeze his arm. “Considering who you had for company before that, I'm not surprised you were so wary.” She paused and added, “Sorry I came on to you so strongly about it, it's just...not like you to lie.”

“I know.”

“You gonna tell them the truth?” 

Poe smiled slightly and bumped his shoulder with hers. “Probably. Maybe not tonight, but...soon.”

Karé smiled widely and pulled him into a hug, “Good because you don't have to mask around us  _ or  _ them.”

Poe wrapped his arms around her, warmth blooming in his chest. “I know.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> yes the song poe is listening to is "hammer to fall" by queen, no I'm not accepting criticism at this time or ever, he listens to queen. he is also autistic.


End file.
